


Sins not Tragedies

by Unsentimentalf



Series: Treason and Plot [4]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: BDSM, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 12:17:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8161837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unsentimentalf/pseuds/Unsentimentalf
Summary: She traces the letters drawn on her lover's chest... She's curious.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was mostly written before Zurich so takes no account of it. It is the last part in the Treason and Plot series.

Her pilots always play games.

Having only two of them and one plane means that they are in each other’s company for every hour of every day of the working week, year in, year out. The human capacity for small talk runs out pretty fast under those circumstances. There are worse things they could be doing to pass the slow hours; arguing about religion and politics, trying to provide half assed therapy for each other’s screwed up lives, irritating the hell out of each other or egging each other on to inflated grievances about the management (that’s her). Providing any monetary stakes don’t get out of hand (and she makes sure they don’t), games are harmless, and frequently entertaining for the onlooker (that’s also her.)

This, however, is something new.

She traces the letters drawn on her lover’s chest. He’s only staying awake out of politeness; a two day trip to Pakistan is enough to tire out anyone. Despite that he managed to be unusually ardent earlier but now his eyelids keep drifting closed. He’s waiting for her to turn the bedside light off and fall asleep on his shoulder, but even though it’s well past midnight and she has to be up in the morning to supervise the freight pickup she’s not sleepy. She’s curious.

“I’ll clean it off in the morning.” He yawns. “Something must shift permanent ink.”

“Nail polish remover. There’s some in my desk.”

“How do you know that?”

“Arthur was four, once upon a time. I know how to remove anything from anything. Except banana. That’s well beyond the capabilities of modern technology to shift.”

“Good.” He’s drifting off again. They had made love earlier in the dark. She’d felt the bare chest then, had rubbed her cheek against it, surprised and slightly titillated. He’d been serious about the razor.

“It will itch as it grows back” she’d pointed out.

“Will it? Damn.” He’d paused on his elbows above her to answer, unfailingly polite even when possessed with this flattering urgency. “Maybe I should keep it shaved, then.”

“Please don’t. It feels like being bonked by a teenager.”

He’d laughed at that, had dipped his head to kiss her. His mouth tasted very slightly bitter, of whatever vegetarian goo he’d eaten in Karachi. She’d been rather taken aback to find when she’d turned on the light that she’d been inadvertently caressing the triumphantly inked name of her other pilot. She just hoped that Douglas would never find out.

Now she wonders if she can persuade Herc to wake up enough to clean the words off now. There is something definitely odd about being expected to cuddle up against a picture of a legless hanged man and a declaration of Douglas’s inherent superiority, even in the dark. The inscription doesn’t seem to be bothering Herc as much as one might expect.

“When Martin was here,” she muses aloud, “this sort of thing didn’t happen.”

“Didn’t it?” He’s stirred a little. “How do you know? Don’t tell me you saw Martin naked.”

“I certainly did not! But I would have known if Douglas had shaved him and drawn on him. The poor boy would have been mortified forever.”

“Um. It’s terribly mortifying.” He’s falling asleep again.

She watches him for a while, the stick man on his chest moving up and down with his slow breathing. Then she goes to fetch a towel, arranges it over the offending area and climbs back into bed, turning the light off. When she rests her head on him he wraps a strong arm around her shoulders, falls back asleep again.

“Don’t get used to it,” she tells herself, as she has done for a hundred nights before. “It won’t last.” It’s an empty mantra now, she suspects. Hercules Shipwright is too far under her skin already.

“Stupid woman,” she whispers to herself. “Stupid, stupid woman. You shouldn’t be letting this happen.” But it’s without any real conviction.

 

“Herc out, Douglas back, alternate is Grenada and you owe me six pounds fifty, Richardson.”

He blinks at her, innocent. “I do? For what, might I ask?”

“Cleaning up your graffiti. Two whole bottles of nail polish remover and a nail brush ruined.”

Douglas grins. “In that case I think you’ll find that it’s Hercules who owes you. Me, I was happy to leave it there.”

“So was I,” Herc grumbles.

“Oh! Did it hurt?” Douglas asks, with an unseemly amount of enthusiasm.

“Like hell, thank you very much.”

“Well maybe that will stop you playing such stupid games,” she says, acerbically. “Douglas, don’t do that again.”

“Certainly not. When have you known me repeat myself?”

“That’s not entirely reassuring,” she points out.

“No.” He’s smug this afternoon, even for Douglas.

She still doesn’t know what the boys were up to. She disclaimed all interest yesterday and she can’t go back on her word. Still, curiosity nags. Had it been anyone else she’d have put it down to excess alcohol but Herc wouldn’t get worse for wear on a stop-over and if Douglas had touched alcohol at all she was sure that neither of them would be so relaxed this afternoon. They did this sober, which is intriguing.

As she and Arthur deal with the passengers she keeps thinking about it. There’s something that she can’t put her finger on, something that she ought to remember. Doling out the desserts in the galley, it comes to her.

“Sprained wrist.”

“Oh no! Have you?” Arthur is staring at her entirely functional arms. “Which one?”

“Not me. Douglas. Remember when he sprained his wrist?”

“Oh yes!” Arthur beams, “That was fun! Not for Douglas, I suppose, but Herc got to fly Gertie and Douglas came and made coffee. It was weird!”

It was weird. That was what had brought it to mind. Douglas had turned up, scratched, bruised and with a wrist in plaster. He and Herc had been at a fancy dress party, something to do with Air England and they’d spun a long and suspiciously well drilled story about how he‘d been hurt. But what she’d remembered was the fear haunting Douglas’s eyes, and Herc’s unhappiness.

There seems no connection. Herc is in a particularly good mood today, despite the discomfort involved in getting the ink off, and Douglas is positively cock-a-hoop. Only that they seemed to share a mystery then and they seem to share one today.

She tuts at herself. This isn’t really a mystery. Herc had offered to tell her the story behind the wager and she’d turned him down. If she really wanted to know she could walk up to the front of the plane right now and ask and they’d both no doubt be delighted to regale her with every detail. She won’t of course, because that would be admitting to being interested in their silly game. But she could.

Whatever happened that night at the party, they’d both got over it fast enough. After about a week Douglas had insisted on coming back to work and she’d had a brief embarrassment of pilots for a couple of days.

She serves the customers without really seeing them at all. She remembers now. That first day the atmosphere on the flight had been bizarre, almost poisonous. Then Herc had gone off with Douglas in the evening “for a drink”, had rung to say he wasn’t coming back that night and had turned up next day with an unexplained wrenched shoulder but looking like the cat that had got the cream, while Douglas’s air of smug superiority had gone up several notches higher than usual. Then everything had gone back to normal.

That’s what has sparked the memory. Herc sparkling happy, Douglas smug, just like today. No strange wager that time, just that sore shoulder that had bothered Herc for a couple of weeks afterwards but that he’d never once complained about or explained.

What the hell are they up to? She’s sure now that it isn’t coincidence. She knows her boys and there’s something going on. Again.

When she takes coffee in they are playing a version of My Grandmother’s Cat that involves backwards adjectives and Herc is proudly announcing that his grandmother’s cat is a ertsulkcal cat. Carolyn thinks that Herc’s grandmother, if still alive, must have received a telegram from the Queen several years ago but she doesn’t say so. Age jokes wear thin fast.

Herc thanks her gravely and apparently sincerely for the coffee. Douglas makes some quip about her coming instead of Arthur but she gets the impression that he’s more interested in what Herc has to say to her than in saying much himself. That peculiarity aside, they both seem fine. Cheerful. Unstressed. She retreats back to the galley as puzzled as ever.

She’s not stupid. There’s an explanation that’s not just obvious but likely. That she doesn’t want to believe it doesn’t stop it from being true. They found a couple of girls in Karachi, she tells herself. They must have done. (She assumes it was a couple. Maybe they shared. That’s a really strange thought, but not terribly likely. They surely have some dignity, after all.)

Douglas is a free agent these days. There’s nothing to stop him having all the casual sex he wants. And Herc… well. There are two things that have to be true of a man who’s been divorced four times. The first is that he’s in love with the ideal of a serious relationship. The second is that he’s incapable of sustaining one. It’s not pure perversity that has made her refuse to listen to his protestations of love and fidelity. It’s not fair to either of them to let the man make promises that she knows he won’t keep. He wouldn’t keep them even if she were a decade younger than him and stunningly beautiful. As it is she’s got no expectations at all.

Arthur is chatting about pineapples. A passenger summons her to complain about the cabin temperature. She shows him how to operate the overhead fan (fortunately he’s got one that actually works) but she’s not paying attention. She’s thinking.

It’s the idea that she’s being taken for a fool that bothers her most. If Herc’s going to sleep around (and she’s always told him that who else he sleeps with is none of her business, although that was when the question seemed purely theoretical and she was mainly trying to put the brakes on his headlong dash towards a fifth set of nuptials as doomed as the first four were) then he should either hide it or let her know. This wandering around being dumbly happy as if she wouldn’t notice is rather insulting and she doesn’t like it.

This is a drop and turn around flight. She escorts the clients as far as Madrid security, confirms the pick up in three days time and returns to the plane. Douglas is outside talking to the refuelling guys in handwaving Spanish. Arthur is clearing up in the cabin, whistling the first phrase of “Spanish Ladies” over and over. She makes her way forward to the cockpit where Herc is snoozing, cap tipped over his eyes, and wakes him with a sharp cough.

“Hello, boss.” It’s his bedroom voice and she is tempted to slap him. Instead she ignores the hopeful pat to his knee and slides down into the co-pilot’s seat.

“Any word from the solicitor?” she asks. The house in Edinburgh is on the point of sale. Herc is supposed to be renting somewhere local to Fitton but so far all he’s done is arrange for all his possessions to go into storage. She knows he’s angling to move in with her- her spare room is already full of his clothes and his computer. She’d started to waver, but now… (A small voice tells her that she could still be wrong. Karachi could have been nothing; just Douglas and Herc messing about. But she doesn’t know, and she doesn’t know how to find out.)

“Still complete next Thursday. I need to go up to bring back some stuff.” He smiles at her. “How do you fancy a romantic break for two in Scotland’s glorious capital?”

She snorts. “You only want me for my aeroplane. Gertie’s charter rates are pinned up in the office. I’ll give you a ten percent discount if you fly her yourself, but you don’t get paid for it.” Every time the plane takes off it costs her thousands in fuel and fees. She can’t afford joyrides.

He shakes his head. “You’re a mean hard woman. I’ll take the car.”

“Good plan. You should be able to fit a spare toothbrush in there somewhere. Maybe the toothpaste as well.” Herc’s mid life crisis Mercedes has rather less luggage space than Douglas’s Lexus version.

Douglas is walking back towards the plane. She gets up to leave and Herc stands with old fashioned courtesy, bends down to kiss her on the forehead. “You’re an utterly irresistible mean hard woman and I trust that you haven’t forgotten our date tonight.”

She has. She spends much of the passengerless flight back pretending to be asleep in the front row of the cabin, but actually she’s fretting about the meal, about Herc’s house sale, even about Douglas. Everything seems to be coming to a head and she’s not ready for it. She doesn’t know what’s going on and she doesn’t know if she can trust anyone.

By the end of the flight she’s come to a decision. She’s knows she’s jumping to some pretty major conclusions from a couple of good moods, and she knows that alone is going to kill this relationship stone dead, whatever the truth may be. She thinks, maybe… maybe she can tolerate him sleeping around when he’s away, if that’s what he needs to do, but she can’t tolerate this not knowing. There’s only one sensible, adult conclusion. They are going to have to talk about it.

The idea fills her with dumb horror. That hasn’t gone by the time they are sitting in the bar, waiting for their table. Herc watches her rapidly down two gin and tonics with a slight frown. She looks through to the glittering restaurant, the chattering diners, and she knows she can’t do this here.

“Not hungry.” She grabs her bag and makes for the exit.

He has to pay for the drinks, so by the time he catches up with her she’s halfway down the high street, heading God knows where.

“Carolyn. What on earth is wrong?”

She keeps walking.

“Carolyn!” He neither grabs her arm nor moves to block the pavement in front of her, for which she’s grateful. Instead he walks next to her, his long strides keeping up with her frantic scurry. “Please tell me what the matter is.”

Walking away from this isn’t what she knows she has to do, however much she wants to. She stops. Blurts out the question with no finesse whatsoever.

“You and Douglas- you picked up women in Karachi, didn’t you?”

“Is that what you…No, we most certainly didn’t.” He’s staring at her. “Why on earth would you think that?”

She’s made herself look ridiculous now and she’s furious with him for it. “The way you two have been strutting around ever since. It’s obvious, Herc. Don’t lie to me about it.”

“Oh,” he says. And then, “Oh.” He does stop her then, gathers her up in his arms. “I’m not going to lie to you, ever. If you want to know what happened in Karachi I’ll tell you.”

“So something happened.” She’s looking up at him but his features are shrouded in the dark.

“Not what you think. Really not what you think.”

“And you don’t want to tell me.”

“I think I’d much rather just throw myself under that bus over there,” he admits. “But if you want to know, you can. Just- don’t sack Douglas. Please.”

It’s a Douglas thing. Of course. If the wretched man has started smuggling again she might do just that. “Tell me.”

His arms tighten around her, then loosen so that he can look down. “I slept with him.”

She pushes him sharply in the chest, releases herself. “If you’re going to make jokes…”

“Seriously.”

“No.” She shakes her head, starts to walk away again. He catches her up.

“Carolyn. Please.”

“He’s straight. Very very straight.”

“Not quite that much, it turns out. There’s a bit of wriggle room.” There’s a hint of amusement in his voice now.

“And you... I mean, why would you? With Douglas? Is this what aging pilots do when they can’t pull stewardesses any more?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“With Douglas involved? I imagine so. How long has this been going on?” It’s too bizarre; she doesn’t know if she’s angry or just bewildered.

“Once before.”

“When, exactly?”

He sighs. “Months ago. Back when he sprained his wrist and I was flying for you. Just once.”

She lets a sigh of her own exhale. He’s not lying to her, at least. If he’d said anything else it would have been over. “You both strutted then, too. At least Douglas did. You just looked fatuously pleased with yourself.”

He winces. “I hadn’t realised… That’s a bit embarrassing.”

“The whole thing is extraordinarily embarrassing and you still haven’t told me why, Hercules Shipwright. Neither ‘I was drunk’ nor ‘he was pretty’ seem to apply. Is it love?”

“It’s Douglas Richardson, Carolyn. Of course it isn’t.” They have reached the market square; he guides her to a bench, sits down beside her. “There is only one person I’m in love with, and you know that.”

“Yet apparently at least two that you sleep with. Forget the sweet talk. I’m waiting for that explanation.”

He looks round and she follows his gaze. It’s cold and dark and there’s a group of teenagers nearby, looking their way and laughing.

“Can we not do this here?” he asks, a touch plaintively. “We could go home and order a takeaway. I’m still hungry, even if you aren’t.”

“That’s my home,” she snaps. “Not yours.”

“Your home.” Herc sounds appropriately subdued. “Honestly, Carolyn. It would be better than out here.”

She concedes that. She’s not enamoured of out here either.

 

Arthur’s gone to the cinema. Herc disappears into the kitchen and she hears the coffee percolator starting. He’s stalling, she thinks. And he slept with Douglas. Douglas! She sits down and waits.

When he comes back in the dog is dancing in circles round him, tail a blur. The dog loves him. Arthur loves him. Right now she could wring his bloody neck. “Sit,” she commands, points towards the armchair. “Talk”.

He does what he’s told. He usually does, in the end. He fingers his coffee and looks at her.

“Ok. Well. The thing with the razor and the marker pens?”

She waits.

“I was,” he pauses, gives her an apologetic smile, “a little tied up at the time.”

She tries to picture that, starts to smile, despite herself. “Tied to a bed?”

“Yes.”

“With clothes on?”

“Not clothes as such, no.”

She waits, again. He’s damn well going to tell her everything, and that isn’t everything. He grimaces, reading her intention.

“There was some other paraphernalia.”

“Like?”

“Blindfold. Tape. Ice.” He makes a disgusted face “Nail biting solution. He’s not a nice man.”

She thinks about this for a while, sipping her coffee, watching him shift slightly in embarrassment.

“You’re basically a big wuss.” she announces, finally.

“Yes,” he agrees. “I’m afraid so.”

“And Douglas is just a schoolyard bully.”

Herc looks as if he might object to that, but in the end he nods. “Moreorless.”

“Were you still tied up for the sex?” She’s genuinely curious now.

“No. That came afterwards, when we were both a bit…” He’s searching for the right word.

“Randy,” she finishes for him.

“Yes.”

She shakes her head. “I still don’t understand how this works. What do you do, get together and decide you’re going to be kinky?”

He frowns at her, “Not really. The way it works…the way it worked last time… is that I wind him up and he reacts.” He’s clearly keen to make her understand. “When we went out to eat, I had a whiskey. I was a bit obnoxious about it, deliberately. There were some other irritations too. When he got annoyed enough I let him know that I was up for a bit of,” He casts around for another word, fails to find it, clearly chooses a poor substitute. “Play, I suppose.”

“Play.” She shakes her head again. “Hercules, you are insane. Don’t you know by now that Douglas never plays fair, especially when you annoy him?”

“That’s the point.”

She tries to imagine it. She’s still handicapped by ignorance. “What sort of sex?”

“I’m not sure that’s really the most important thing right now.”

“You said that you’d tell me everything.” She’s not being fair herself, but she’s had a bloody awful day worrying about this and she isn’t feeling particularly nice.

“Hands and mouths,” he says, reluctantly. “No kissing. It was very functional.”

Herc’s a gentle and considerate lover, sometimes excessively so. There is always kissing. She can’t get her head around this. The dog paws at her lap and she caresses her automatically. “Are you going to do it again?”

He looks unsettled. “I don’t… No, not if it upsets you. No.”

She doesn’t know if it upsets her or not. “Do you want to do it again?”

“Not any time soon.” That was heartfelt. “He doesn’t pull his punches. I won’t want to go through that again for a while.”

Douglas the sadist she can imagine. He’d be polite and cruel and very smug indeed. He’s not going to take her boyfriend from her, of that she is determined. She might have been expecting to lose Herc somewhere down the line to some trim forty year old divorcee but certainly not to Douglas bloody Richardson.

A man with any talent at all for monogamy doesn’t end up divorced four times. She doesn’t want Herc’s reluctant and essentially worthless promise of fidelity. She wants a very sharp word with her longest-serving pilot but that’s not sensible, not right now. If one absolutely has to go up against Douglas it should at least be after careful preparation.

“I fancy Chinese,” she says. “And Snoopadoop needs to go out. If you ring them we can walk out and pick it up. I’ll tell you about the court case and you can make suitably admiring noises.”

They eat takeaway and watch a mediocre film. They don’t mention Karachi again that evening, but as she gets ready for bed Herc is hovering outside the bathroom.

“I could sleep in the spare room,” he suggests as she emerges.

“No you couldn’t” she snaps. “My sewing kit is spread out all over there. I’m too tired to tidy it up just for you. Do hurry up and get ready for bed. Five minutes and I’m turning the light off.”

She curls up against the welcome warmth of his body in the bed, and he holds her a little more tightly than usual. This is not resolved, not yet, but she is determined that it will be, somehow. For that she has to deal with Douglas Richardson. She drifts off to sleep without yet coming up with a plan for that.


	2. Chapter 2

"Arthur! Take this to the cockpit and see if Herc would like it.”

Her son jumps up. ”Yes, of course.”

She stops him as he leaves. “What did I say, again?”

“Take it to the cockpit, see if they’d like it.”

“Not they. Herc. Lemon cake is his favourite.”

Arthur nods again, with a little less enthusiasm. “But if he doesn’t want it?”

“Bring it back here. I’ll have it later.”

“Ok. But if Douglas wants it? He likes cake.”

“I’m not offering it to Douglas. He’s quite heavy enough. Cake. Herc. Here. Got it?”

“Got it,” he says, rather sadly and scurries off with the plate.

She smiles. If even Arthur is getting the message then there’s no possibility that Douglas is missing it. She’s interfered in half a dozen disputes this week on Herc’s side. She’s made sure that Douglas has had the dirtiest, most tiring jobs. She’s pretty sure her pilot is already seething quietly.

She needs to act before he takes matters into his own hands, but that’s covered. They are flying without her in the afternoon tomorrow for the first time since Karachi, four weeks ago, and their take-off’s going to be unavoidably delayed for at least four hours. They are going to get into Vitebsk, Belarus, also known as the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, tired, fed up and hoping for a good night’s rest.

 

The phone call comes at ten past nine pm GMT (ten past midnight Belarus time). Douglas is not happy.

“Why is there only one room booked, Carolyn?”

“I’ve no idea.” She pretends to think. “Oh, yes. It was going to be a solo flight but then I changed my mind. Did I never get round to booking the second room? Oh dear.”

“Book it now. I’m handing the phone over.”

It’s late. They are very sorry but they have no more rooms, except the luxury suite. They quote a price and she hopes that Douglas is wincing.

When the phone is handed back to Douglas she says bluntly. “I’m not paying that. You can share Herc’s room or pay it yourself.”

“How is it Herc’s room all of a sudden?”

“Because he’s not the one complaining at me.”

“I have a right to complain. This trip has been a complete farce. First the delays, then halfway here you tell us the pick up’s moved to tomorrow evening and now this. You’re losing your grip, Carolyn. This is even less of a serious business than it used to be, and it used to have Martin, for heaven’s sake.”

“Find another job, then,” she says sharply. “And the sooner the better. I have a reliable pilot now to replace you and it would mean I can stop counting the spoons. But for tonight you can stop being childish and share a room.” She hangs up.

 

Two minutes later Herc calls. He speaks in low tones.

“This is really not a good idea, Carolyn.”

“Calling me at this time of night? You’re spot on there. Go away.”

“Listen to me, please. Douglas is in an absolutely foul mood and he’s blaming most of this on me.”

“Diddums,” she says, cheerfully. “I’m not remotely interested in pilots’ quarrels.”

There’s a pause at the other end of the line, then, in an even lower voice, “Douglas and I quarrelled in Karachi.”

“So it’s your lucky night. I’m even less interested in that. I’ll see you tomorrow evening. Goodnight.” She hangs up again. That bit’s rather fun.

She doesn’t have any control over what happens next. There is a good chance that nothing will happen. She doesn’t understand what Herc told her enough to be certain how Douglas will react, still less whether Herc will succumb again but it was worth a punt and a couple of hundred pounds for an air ticket via Frankfurt. She’s that determined to get this sorted out.

There are voices in the corridor outside her room, the noise of a key in the lock next door.. She moves the cushions onto the floor and settles down next to the adjoining wall with the selection of glasses she’s brought with her and a device that cost her thirty quid from eBay and probably won’t work at all.

It works better than the glasses do, to her surprise. She can’t hear every word by any means- Herc at least is keeping his voice down- but they are most definitely arguing.

 

“Might have known you couldn’t keep your mouth shut!”

Mumble.

“I’m not talking about that! She called me a thief, Hercules. Why the hell do you think she’d do that, if not for you gossiping?”

Mumble.

“You’re after my job, now you’ve none of your own, and you told her about the whole bloody Air England mess so that you’d get it. I should never have believed you.”

Air England? She’s intrigued. Caught doing a bit of smuggling, Douglas had told her. Herc had never suggested otherwise.

Herc says something which might have been Karachi. Douglas is getting louder.

“Fuck that! If you’d told her about Karachi it would be your precious arse out on the pavement, not mine! Or didn’t you tell her how you begged me for it?”

Herc’s deep voice is also getting more audible.

“…suits me fine. I still don’t want your job, and I didn’t say a word about your thieving. She probably heard about that from someone else. It’s hardly going to come as a surprise, is it Douglas, the way that you behave?”

There is a thud, a pause and then Herc’s voice, too low to make out.

Douglas has dropped his tone too. “…you think so? Shall we see?”

…a good idea.” Herc’s voice goes up. “I’m not sure you want to do this tonight, Douglas.”

“Is that a no?”

A silence, then Herc, slowly. “No. It’s a yes. But you will remember that I warned you.”

“Shut up.”

She listens for several minutes. Neither of them speak audibly again and she can’t make out the nature of the noises but there are a lot of them.

Douglas is Douglas. Nothing gets under his skin, not really. Mud doesn't stick. He's always got a comeback. She hadn't for one moment expected him to take anything she said to heart. Of course she wasn't going to replace him. Of course she didn't think he'd steal from her - not much, anyway.

But she hadn't known about whatever this thing is that she still doesn't know about - something about Air England, something that Herc had known but never told her. And she hadn't guessed - how could she? - that Douglas might think his job was really under threat. She only intended to wind him up a bit, so that he'd work out his frustration harmlessly baiting Herc in a creepily sexual manner and she could waltz in at a suitably embarrassing moment and mock them both.

She's breathing too fast. Her heart is fluttering uncomfortably. She doesn't know what to do. The earphones amplify what sounds like a yelp, followed by Douglas growling something indecipherable. She knows nothing about their games really except that Douglas is very much in control and that it turns both of them on. She knows Herc well enough to understand that he might choose to make himself vulnerable but she can't imagine her Douglas, her clever, relaxed, self satisfied Douglas, getting angry enough to hurt anyone deliberately. Humiliate, yes. She's certain that he can be cruel. But physical pain?

She has to do something. She gets to her feet, takes her phone into the bathroom on the other side of her room and calls Herc. She can hear the ringer faintly through the walls without any amplification. It rings, and rings, goes through to voice mail. She tries again and this time it's picked up.

"Carolyn?" He sounds surprised, worried even. "Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine here. Did you settle your squabble with Douglas? "

"I'm working on it," he says and then there is a rustle and the phone goes dead. When she tries to reconnect she is sent straight through to voice mail. It's been turned off.

She tries Douglas's phone, hears it ring twice before it too goes dead. She sits in the bathroom wondering what to do next. It proves, she supposes, that Douglas is not behaving completely irresponsibly; he did at least let Herc take enough of the call to be sure that there was no emergency. But without the phones she's only got two choices; leave them to it or interrupt them in person.

The headphones are still lying beside the wall. She creeps back tentatively, puts them on. There is a loud crash and she recoils in panic before realising that it was a thump against the partition wall.

"I might remind you that someone's trying to sleep through there." Herc's voice is much louder now. He's close to the wall.

"Did I say you could talk?" Douglas's tone is good humoured and Carolyn feels a second of relief. It is quenched by the next sound; a dull impact, and a muffled cry.

"No more noise, and I’d like both hands flat against this rather unpleasant wallpaper. "

There is silence for a few seconds then a second dull thud. And a third. She can’t take any more of this.

There’s no reply to her first knock on the door, nor to the second. She tries again.

“Douglas Richardson! Open this door!”

A few seconds later it opens, a crack.

“Carolyn?” Douglas opens it a little more, but his body is still in the way. There’s no possibility of barging through.

“What on earth is going on?” It’s Douglas who asks, though it could as well have been her question.

“Let me in.”

“I don’t think I want to.” He looks down at her. He doesn’t look much different from usual; a little more mussed, maybe. His trousers are sagging around his hips; she can see a streak of black underpants showing. “This is my bedroom. It’s late. Go away.”

“I paid for it.”

“Which still doesn’t give you the right to come in, unless I misunderstand employment law completely.”

“It’s also Herc’s room,” she points out.

“So it is. Herc!” he calls back. “Would you like me to let her in?”

Herc’s voice comes back, slightly nearer frantic than usual. “Not right now, no.”

“Two out of two. That’s conclusive.” He’s considering her. “Since you don’t have so much as a coat or handbag with you, I deduce that you also have a room, which I suppose is no weirder than you being here at all. Where is it?”

She gestures back at her door.

“Next door? I see, or at least I’m beginning to see. Why don’t we reconvene there in five minutes?”

“I want to see Herc now,” she insists.

“He’s a little tied up at the moment. Five minutes, Carolyn. And I trust you’re going to have some remarkably convincing, or at least moderately amusing explanations for all this.” He closes the door firmly in her face.

She spends five minutes tidying her room. It’s on the end of the corridor and above the bar; the poor sod in the room opposite might lose some sleep but in general she thinks they can talk without being disturbed. This is not necessarily a good thing.

When she opens the door to the quiet knock it’s Douglas, fully dressed again, with Herc looking sombre behind. She lets them in and they stand beside the bed, while she takes the only chair.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” she demands of Herc, because he has to be easier to deal with. He shrugs slightly, looks a little embarrassed, nods towards Douglas.

“Just because we were interrupted does not mean we were done.” Douglas tells her. “I’ll be doing the talking.”

She processes that for a second. They are still playing their game. In her room. In front of her. “You’ve got a nerve!” she tells him.

“That’s it? All this set up, all that eavesdropping, however much this must have cost and that’s your conclusion?” Douglas’s voice drips disdain. “I think we all knew that already. You’ve wasted your time and money, Carolyn. I can’t speak for your boyfriend’s mendacity but if you’d simply asked me I would have told you what we were doing.”

“So,” she challenges him. “Tell me then. What exactly were you doing next door?”

“I’ll go one better,” he tells her. “I’ll show you.”

There is an audible groan from Herc. “Douglas!” he protests.

Douglas turns to him. “Have you got anything to say?”

Herc glances between the two of them. “No.” he concedes.

“Do you really do everything he tells you to?"

“Of course not.” Douglas dismisses the idea breezily. “That would be ridiculous.”

This situation, she points out, is already about as ridiculous as she can possibly imagine.

“Then you aren't trying very hard.” Douglas clicks his fingers. “Kneel down there. And I can't help but notice that your attention keeps wandering. A little more focus, Hercules? I am going to some small trouble on your account here.”

Herc rolls his eyes at that last but he does what he's told. He's no longer even glancing at her. Douglas has turned away from her as well, his attention apparently all on the man at his feet. She doesn't buy that for a second.

It's just a silly game, she tells herself, and then Herc takes his jacket off. There are two narrow red-brown streaks down the back of his shirt and she feels a jolt of something - Anger? Shock? Confirmation? She really doesn't know.

“I don't want to watch this,” she says to both of them. Neither respond. Herc is peeling off his stained shirt now. There are several vivid scarlet lines but only two seem to have cut into the skin and neither are still bleeding.

It's her skin that Douglas has damaged. Hers. She stands up, reaches out to touch her lover's back, feels the heat radiating from the stripes under her fingertips. How dare they? For the first time since Herc told her about Karachi she knows for certain that she's angry.

“Get up,” she demands. “Get up now.”

Douglas shakes his head at her over Herc's unmoving scalp. “You'll have to do better than that.”

“Stop making him do this, Douglas!”

He raises his eyebrows. “Do you see rope or handcuffs, Carolyn? Right now I can't make him do anything.” He smiles. “I've got some tape as it happens, next door. Maybe later I'll show you what we can do with that.”

He's trying to bait her. She doesn't understand why Herc won't do what he's told. “Get up!” she insists, again, coming round to face him. He won't look at her, won't respond. His face is blank. Douglas has him and she doesn't understand how.

“Forehead on the floor,” Douglas commands, and Herc obeys, still on his knees but now bowed down to the carpet, half naked. His back and shoulders are twisted sinew and muscle, tough skin and striped red. Douglas is unbuckling his belt, drawing it out from the rings on his trousers. She realises that she'd seen him without it when he opened the door to her and she'd noticed his trousers sagging.

“Don't hurt him! Why on earth would you want to hurt him? Stop it now!”

Douglas looks puzzled for a moment. “Why? Isn't this what you wanted, Carolyn? You worked hard enough to get it.” He is doubling the belt over now.

“No!” she protests. “Of course not!”

“Then what did you want?”

The belt swings up and she lunges forward to grab his arm. He blocks her easily with his other hand, the leather comes down and impacts with a dull thud. Herc gasps, flinching, and Carolyn squeaks in horror.

“Don't fuss,” Douglas says. “He's all right, more or less. I am painfully curious though. Everything you've done in the last week or so appears to be aimed at provoking my temper together with ensuring that I have an appropriate and, not incidentally, entirely consensual outlet for expressing it. You succeeded in manipulating both of us admirably, for which I suppose I should offer my congratulations. And yet you seem surprised. Now what elements of this situation didn't you predict?”

She has far more immediate questions. “Why does he let you do that?”

“Am I his therapist? You'll have to ask him later. Back to my question, if you don't mind.”

They are talking about Herc as if he's not there. He's kneeling still and silent in front of them, face hidden. She wonders what he's thinking, what it feels like to be down there. She wants to reach out and tug her fingers hard through his short greying hair, scream at him to stop this and talk to her but she doesn't want to fail again in front of Douglas.

“I thought,” she says, knowing her anger must sound barely controlled, “that you'd be a little more creative and amusing and a lot less of a thug. Tell me about Air England.”

That gets a flicker. ”I doubt that I could add anything sufficiently… amusing to the account you've had already.” The look he gives to the exposed back bodes poorly for Herc.

“I've been told nothing at all. The first I knew about it was hearing you two bickering half an hour ago. This,” she gestures at Herc, “might be argued to have nothing to do with your employment but the reason you were fired from your last job? I rather think that might. I'll have the truth, Richardson, or I'll sack you here and now and I imagine that any employment tribunal would back me all the way.”

“Given the present state of MJN's affairs, that threat's not particularly intimidating.” He crouches down, loops the belt around Herc's neck and buckles it close. Then he moves the desk chair forward, tucks the other end of the belt underneath its front leg and sits down on it. “Do take a seat.” He indicates the bed.

“You can't leave him like that.” She tries to imagine Herc's discomfort. A long slow twitch runs across his left shoulder, and then another.

“Oh, I can and will. You are interrupting us, Carolyn. The longer you insist on interrogating me the longer this takes. Air England. Sit down.”

She sits.

“You called me a thief.” His voice has turned lazy but she's not fooled.

“You took my whisky.”

He snorts. “You'd already been paid lavishly for it each time. If anything it was Birling's whisky and he could afford it. Count the spoons, you said. Was that the only reason?”

She thinks about it. “What haven't you told me?”

“I make a point of telling you as little as I can.” He's drawling now, sounding more comfortable, settling back in the chair.

“I know that. But you're going to tell me now.” She glances down as Herc shivers slightly. The room is cold. “And hurry up about it.”

“Very well.” He pauses. “He really told you nothing? “

“Nothing about Air England, no. We don't talk about you much” she says, snidely.

“Hm. And is he after my job?”

“I've never suggested that there was a vacancy and he’s never asked. Back to Air England, please.”

He nods. “Some relatively valuable items were abstracted from the onboard sales collection. Repeatedly.”

She noted his use of the passive tense. “You stole them.”

“They didn't have enough evidence to prosecute.”

“But enough to sack you. Did Herc know?”

“Everybody knew.” He sighs. “It's not that big a company. I was unpleasantly notorious and apparently still am. If you'd insisted on references when you hired me I'd have been sunk. But you weren't asking too many questions.”

He smiles at her with a hint of genuine warmth, this time, the memory of humour. “I thought at first I must have got myself into part of some sort of smuggling ring. With you, Arthur and Gertie MJN could not possibly be a credible business venture. I was rather delighted to find that you were all three bona fide, if unique, and that whilst I might find myself out of a job again when you went bust I was unlikely to end up in a police cell.”

He sits back. “So that's the story. I imagine that it gives you the excuse you need. As you say, sacking me for playing games with your boyfriend is legally dubious, but you could pretend to hang it on this and probably get away with it.”

Carolyn draws herself up indignantly. “I'll have you know, Douglas Richardson, that I'll sack you for whatever I please and be damned to your fig leaf. I don't give two hoots for your previous sordid life of crime. All pilots are untrustworthy scoundrels but I still need them to fly my plane. If your last employers were stupid enough not to count everything not nailed down every time you set foot on their aircraft more fool them.”

Herc's bare shoulders are shaking. She wonders anxiously if he's in pain, then realises that he's laughing.

Douglas isn't. “So why did you bring it up?”

“Herc said that you needed to be irritated. I wanted to see what that was like. It seemed to work.”

“Yes, it did.” He looks thoughtful for a moment. “Your stirring has put me in a rather invidious position.”

“Really?” She wonders if he's going to have the nerve to apologise to her.

“In the absence of any other explanation I assumed that Herc's malicious gossip had to be behind your newfound hostility. This,” he taps Herc in the ribs with a toe, “was a fairly proportionate response, in the circumstances. But now you tell me that he's relatively innocent this time. “

He grimaces. “ I have, it appears, been taking it out on the wrong person. I doubt if Herc will object, given his particular proclivities, but I most certainly do. Games have rules, Carolyn, and this one currently doesn't abide by them. It's deeply unsatisfactory.”

“How is this my problem?” she asks. “I don’t know the rules to your stupid game. I'm not playing it.”

“You found out enough about it to know what you were doing when you set this up behind our backs. You might not be playing but you are involved up to your neck.”

She's not sure that she's entirely happy about his tone. “So now I’ve spoilt your little entertainment? Good. Let him up then.”

“You think that I can just call the whole thing off at this point?” He shakes his head at her. “You really don’t understand, do you?”

“Explain.”

“Delighted to. The first reason is that, having got this far, I find myself disinclined to quit without a clear win.

“The second is that I am still quite remarkably annoyed. Your behaviour towards both of us has been absolutely appalling, Carolyn. I do not appreciate being jerked around for days so that you can get your kicks from being a secret voyeur, and I doubt if he does either. I don’t intend to simply let this pass.

“Since I imagine you are unlikely to volunteer for your own penance, I will have to change the rules a little. We’ll go back to your original plan and have Herc take the rap for your misdeeds.” His toe goes into Herc’s ribs again, harder this time. “He’s foolish and fond enough to go along with that, I imagine.”

“My plan?”

“That’s why we are all here, Carolyn, in case you’ve forgotten. You wound me up and then fed me Herc to take it out on, for your entertainment. Your plan.”

She can’t find an argument for that. “It’s not fair. You can’t do that.”

“As you said earlier, you’re not in the game. It’s not up to you.”

Carolyn has known Douglas a long time. She is not stupid. She has seen the jaws of this particular trap looming well before she has to decide whether to stick her head inside. She pauses, briefly, but Herc is still kneeling on the floor in front of them, the marks of Douglas’s temper stark across his skin. She can’t walk away from this. And she’s still terribly curious.

“Then I’m in.”

Herc lurches upwards, the belt snapping tight around his neck. “Douglas!” he growls from a crouching position about two feet from the ground.

“Be quiet,” Douglas says. “I’ll deal with your objections in a minute.” And, to Carolyn. “I’ll need a little more in the way of freely given consent than that.”

“When does it end?” she asks, cautiously.

“Whenever you like.”

“So what’s the point?”

“What’s the point of any game? To pass the time. To win.”

“So how do I…do we win?”

“You don’t. You just put off losing for as long as possible. I win.” He seems in better spirits that she’s seen him for ages. She wonders how long he’s been fretting about a revelation of his past.

“I am your boss,” she points out. “I don’t want to encourage you to be any more insubordinate than you are already.”

“It’s just a game, Carolyn. When it’s done, it’s done.”

“In that case,” she says, trying to sound matter of fact, feeling her heart race, “freely given consent it is. What do I have to do?”

“You’re in. Just follow my instructions. Now,” he turns to Herc, “your objections. Firstly, don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn’t dream of laying a finger on the lady. When have I ever been less than the soul of chivalry? Secondly, no she isn’t doing this to save your slightly bruised skin. That’s just her excuse. Tell him,” he says to Carolyn, “that it’s just your excuse.”

She’s about to contradict Douglas, because that’s what she does, but she catches the amused look in his eye just in time. It’s a test.

“It’s just my excuse,” she tells Herc, cheerfully. “I’m actually rather taken by the idea.”

He lifts his head from where it has been buried in his hands. “You really can’t do this, Carolyn

“Why shouldn’t I play if I want to?” she demands. “You do.”

“I like this sort of thing and he still makes it hell. You’ll just hate it.”

She bridles at that. “I’m certainly not intimidated by Douglas, of all people. Maybe I like this sort of thing too. How would you know?”

“I think I’d have noticed by now if you had the faintest hint of a submissive streak,” Herc says dryly. He draws himself up as far as the belt permits; she’s still looking down at him. “I won’t permit it.”

“So you think I’m submissive enough to take your orders, then?” She snorts. “If you didn’t want this to happen then you shouldn’t have taken up with Richardson behind my back.”

“This was hardly an obvious consequence” he complains. He appeals to Douglas, “You must see that this is a terrible idea.”

Douglas shakes his head, smiling. “Why? From my perspective it could be twice as much fun.”

“But,” Herc says. He seems to be floundering, “But…”

Realisation dawns. “Hercules Shipwright!” she snaps. “Are you seriously fretting about missing out on the gay bonking? With Douglas?”

“Of course not!” he insists.

“He's lying,” Douglas says from beside her.

“I know.”

“Enough of this jollity. Carolyn, get Herc's bag from next door.” Douglas slips the belt from under his chair and stands up. Herc perforce stands too. She nips next door as quickly as possible, unwilling to miss whatever they are saying to each other. When she gets back Herc had been freed, is standing looking slightly bemused. She drops the bag on the floor.

“What now?”

“Well, I'm going to get some sleep, now I've got a room to myself. Everything else can wait. See you in the morning. Goodnight.” Douglas nods to her politely and walks out.

“What on earth?” she asks Herc.

“Change of venue,” he says, looking around distractedly. “This isn't private enough, apparently.”

“So where and when?”

“Tomorrow, when we get back. At his flat.”

“And until then?”

“This particular game is suspended during work hours. Douglas didn't think you'd be capable of keeping it up for five minutes when there's freight to organise.” He looks down at her. “I cannot possibly tell you how much I think that this is a bad idea.”

“It's only Douglas,” she says, a little more lightly than she feels. “And for once he has the right idea. It's late. We should get some sleep.”

They have a lot that they need to talk about, betrayals and revelations, but by silent agreement they don't talk about anything. Herc falls asleep almost as soon as he gets into bed, snores gently, facing his side of the bed. After half an hour of lying awake Carolyn turns the bedside lamp on again and pulls the covers gently aside. The heat and the redness have gone now; there’s nothing but a couple of scratches to show for the night’s events.

“Oh, my boys,” she murmurs, softly. “What do you both think you’re playing at?” Somewhat reassured by the lack of real damage and the familiar solidity of Herc’s warm back, she turns the light out again and this time she falls asleep easily.


	3. Chapter 3

Carolyn wakes to a knock on the door.

“Don’t get up. It’s just breakfast.” Herc is up already, wrapped in the lightweight dressing gown he always travels with. He opens the door and brings the tray over. “Good morning. Tea, toast and dalliance. We have plenty of time.”

They dally contentedly until the left over dregs of the tea are stone cold and they can hear the chambermaid in what had been Douglas’s room. Herc folds his hands behind his head and gazes at the ceiling. 

“We ought to leave. I rather wish we could stay here longer.”

Carolyn glances sideways at him. “What's bothering you this time?” 

“I'm unclear,” he doesn't look her way, “as to how I can simultaneously both follow his instructions and look after you. “

She thinks about telling him he’s an idiot but she can tell that this really is troubling him. 

“Douglas is an out and out scoundrel but he's been my scoundrel for years, Herc. Though it pains me to admit it, there is no-one I trust more.” She puts a finger to his lips to silence the protest. “I understand the game. I know he has to go further than is tolerable to win. But he’ll stop when I tell him to stop. I don't need you to protect me from Douglas. I need you to play alongside me, to keep it entertaining.” 

He closes his eyes. “Why,” he murmurs to the ceiling,” are you doing this? Really?”

“Why should you two have all the fun?” she says lightly. It's close enough. She doesn't want to reveal the churning jealousy, not just that Douglas might get a piece of her Herc but that Herc might end up with something of Douglas that she does not. She thinks of them in bed together - hands and mouths, Herc had said- and much to her inward embarrassment she knows that she wants in, even though she has no reason to believe that either of them would want her there. She wonders why Douglas thinks she's playing. She has the uncomfortable suspicion that he knows perfectly well. 

 

"Keys, plane and warehouse," Douglas tosses them onto the office desk. 

"Hooks," Carolyn says without looking up from the computer screen. 

"You're only going to pick them up again in a couple of minutes on your way out," he points out. 

"Yes. And where I'm going to pick them up from is their hooks, where they belong." She's finishing off the final invoice for the Belarus trip. She's charged the client for the second room but she can't work out any good way of placing either the cost of the delays or her own commercial airfare at his door. She hears the sound of the keys being scooped up again and hung in their place with mild pleasure. 

It's been an odd sort of day. A prick of nerves has shown here and there under Herc's studied urbanity. Douglas has been rather co-operative, at least by his standards and definitely in a good mood. She hopes that she’s been perfectly normal. 

Douglas pauses at the door. “I’ll be at the flat in an hour. I’ve got to pick up some extra bits and pieces.” 

“Good,” she says. “I can get some more invoicing done.”

“Not a chance.” Herc’s deep voice. He’s already got his coat on. “You and I are going for a decent coffee. See you in a bit, Douglas.”

She is persuaded without much difficulty into the Fitton Starbucks. Contemplating her coffee, she tries a question, one that has been bothering her. “I thought you said he had to be irritated. He seems quite cheerful today.”

“Oh, you managed that yesterday, with plenty to spare.” Herc is amused. “Don’t worry, he’s still keeping score.” 

“Oh.” She stirs the froth with the little wooden stick that so annoys her. What is wrong with providing a spoon? 

“Getting cold feet?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Just checking.” Herc wraps weathered fingers around his mug.

“What about you?” she asks.

“Oh, I always get rather chilly appendages around now.” He smiles at her. “But I keep going anyway. Too stubborn not to.”

It’s the last chance she has to ask questions and she’s got plenty of those but instead she sips the coffee and looks out at the darkening street, her free hand straying to rest on Herc’s arm. It’s closing time and the coffee shop is nearly empty; it’s quiet in here. Out there Douglas is shopping for God knows what. She hopes that dinner is included in his plans; she’s starting to get hungry. 

Herc’s phone beeps. “He’s back home,” he tells her. “We have to go.” 

They have to go. They are under orders now. She nods, finishes off her drink and visits the ladies. “I’m ready,” she tells Herc and they walk together, without speaking, out to the car.

“Come in.” Douglas hangs up their coats, points them towards the living room. Carolyn looks round, curious. She’s never been past the front door before. It’s a comfortable looking place, not quite tidy. There are framed classic film posters on the walls and racks of DVDs and CDs, a couple of bookshelves and a large TV with a handful of DVD boxes scattered at its foot. A paperback thriller lies open face down on the back of the red leather sofa and a shortbread biscuit tin sits on the glass coffee table along with a copy of the Radio Times, two remote controls and an empty coffee mug.

Sliding doors lead to a small balcony. She pushes the curtains open, peers through the glass. They are three floors up, on the top floor of a modern and relatively expensive block of flats right on the edge of town. Fitton’s lights are off to their left; to the right house and car lights are intermittent between the darkness of farmers’ fields. In the distance she can just about make out the landing beacon of the airport.

“Carolyn.” Douglas’s voice brings her back to the room. She turns around.

“Yes?”

He’s standing there, solid enough, just Douglas. “Don’t forget,” he says to her, “that at some point you’re going to cry off.” Without waiting for her reply he goes straight on. “Take a seat.” He gestures to the cushioned armchair. 

“As for you,” he says to Herc, standing in the doorway, “you should know the drill by now.”

Herc nods, starts to unbutton the pilot’s jacket that he’s still wearing. She notices that Douglas has already changed into slacks and a polo shirt. The flat is warm; she thinks of taking her own jacket off, but she doesn’t want to do it simultaneously with Herc. 

Douglas is leaning on the back of the sofa, watching Herc, who has finished taking off his shirt and is looking around for somewhere to put it. In the end he drapes it over the sofa arm and looks questioningly at Douglas.

“Keep going.”

Herc’s eyes flicker briefly to Carolyn, then back to Douglas. He crouches down to untie his shoelaces then strips down as far as his underpants. A pile of clothes amasses on the end of the sofa.

“And those.”

“Please excuse the nudity,” Herc says, politely, to Carolyn, as he pulls his pants down and steps out of them.

Douglas snorts. “We’ll have no more apologies, at least not that way round. You and I are definitely owed a few.”

She’s not standing for that. “After what you did?” 

He slices a hand downwards at her. “Hush.” She hushes, reluctantly.

“Did he ever tell you how this started? Don’t answer aloud. I just want to know yes or no.”

She shakes her head.

“No, he wouldn’t have. I’d been attacked over the Air England thing. That’s how my wrist got hurt. Hercules came riding to my rescue, white knight and all that. Then he tried to blackmail me.” He gestures, “Down”, and Herc drops to his knees. He’s got that blank look in his eyes again. 

“He wanted control. Something like this, in fact, but the other way around.” Douglas laughs. “He actually thought he could teach me humility. It worked about as well as you’d expect. By the time he’d finished I had him in the palm of my hand, and as you can see, I still do.”

He comes a little closer. "It will be interesting to see if you can be as compliant as he is." 

She looks at Herc, back at Douglas. "What, stripped naked and kneeling at your feet, Douglas Richardson? Is that the sort of thing you've always dreamed of me doing? If that's the way the game is played, I'll play it. But to be honest I really can't see the appeal." 

It's reassuring to hear Herc laugh. She thinks Douglas is suppressing a smile. 

"I thought this might be an issue," he says, not to her but to Herc. "Is there any chance that she'll be able to voluntarily keep quiet?"

Herc shakes his head, eyes glinting with amusement. 

"I tend to agree." Douglas disappears briefly into what she suspects is his bedroom, comes back with a long piece of folded purple silk which he presents to Carolyn. "Try this." 

"Try what with it? "

"Wrapping it around the lower half of your face. Not talking back is really not going to come easy for you, I'm afraid. This should help. It's new, and perfectly clean." 

For a moment she can't decide whether to take this as a huge indignity that she can't possibly tolerate, or relatively mild and polite compared to the things Herc is being put through. He's looking at her now, trying to hide his worry. She thinks about flouncing out now, leaving the two of them alone together and that decides her. 

"You do it," she says to Douglas, handing the silk back to him. He nods in what might be approval, goes around the back of her chair and wraps it firmly twice around her mouth, ties it at the back of her head.

"Comfortable?"

She nods. Her hands are free; she can take it off at any time. There’s an odd release of tension in not needing to think of an appropriate rejoinder. 

"Good. Now I've got both of you quiet, its time to tell you what's going to happen next. Herc- there’s a shopping bag in the kitchen. You’re going to stay in there and make dinner. And while we wait for that, Carolyn, you and I are going to play twenty questions.”

He snaps his fingers. “Off you go.”

Herc’s eyes flicker to Carolyn’s. Seemingly satisfied by what he sees there, he leaves the room. She wonders what’s for dinner. Herc’s a remarkably good cook, except for the vegetarian thing. Would Douglas make him cook steak? She raises an eyebrow at Douglas. What next?

He shuts the door, settles himself on the sofa, facing her. He watches her for a few minutes. It’s still warm; since nothing else is happening she takes her jacket off.

"Twenty questions. With forfeits, if I think you're not being honest. One. Do you feel any remorse about the way you behaved?”

She shakes her head. She doesn't care if it’s the wrong answer. She is not going to fake contrition for Douglas. 

“Good. That makes things simpler. Let’s go back to the start then. Two. Karachi. Herc told you something.”

She’s not heard any questions yet so she keeps still.

“Knowing your boyfriend as I do, and I do know him remarkably well these days, I imagine he’s told you that we have a sexual relationship that involves some bondage games and a little humiliation. Or something close to that. Yes?

She nods. 

“He’s an idiot,” Douglas says cheerfully. “Do you know why I play this game with Herc?”

She shakes her head.

“You can ignore the salacious ideas he’s given you. Basically I do it to keep him honest.” He stretches out on the sofa, kicks his shoes off. “He’s got me at a disadvantage on one or two points and he isn’t shy about using that, as the failed blackmail attempt demonstrated. You think he likes this, and he does, in a way, but he can’t take too much of it so he doesn’t step far out of line. I was rather surprised to find that he had, yesterday, but it turns out that was you all along.”

There are noises from the kitchen - a kettle boiling, she thinks. Douglas goes on, after a pause.

“So you know why I let you in?” 

She shrugs.

“Oh Carolyn,” he says. “Don’t pretend to be naïve. You’re here for exactly the same reason, as far as I’m concerned. You transgressed all reasonable boundaries and now I have to make sure that you know not to do it again. The only difference is that unlike your borderline masochistic boyfriend you may not enjoy any of the lesson. Fortunately that’s not my problem.”

The kitchen suddenly seems a long way away. There is nothing she can do but sit and wait. 

“So, Karachi. Herc’s playing away and you intend to do something about it. It’s not enough just to berate him about it. You want to catch us at it so that you can take the moral high ground.” He grins at her, “That was your first mistake. Never, ever try to take the moral high ground with me unless your own hands are spotless, and they aren’t.”

He takes her through everything that she’d done over the last few weeks to get him first annoyed with Herc and then alone with him. Lie after lie after lie that she’s told him, Herc, even Arthur and their customers. She tries a little judicious fudging every so often and he calls her out on it, exacts penalties by confiscation of items such as her armchair cushion and her shoes. 

By the time they are up to yesterday evening and what she heard while listening through the wall she’s struggling not to cringe every time he opens his mouth.

“Did we shock you?” 

No. 

Douglas winces. “And after you were doing so well. Sit on the floor, please, and we'll try that again. Did we shock you? Honestly, this time.” 

A reluctant nod from her new place on the carpet. 

“Of course we did. Try to keep your answers on the right side of ridiculous, please.”

She wants to snap something back at him, but she can’t, not and stay in the game. As games go this one is less fun than most, though probably still a touch less dire than playing Monopoly with Arthur with the free parking rule.

“I’ve told you why I play the game. Do you know why Herc plays along?”

Carolyn thinks about that for a moment, then nods. Herc likes games. He particularly likes being appallingly rude while maintaining seemingly impeccable manners and he likes being slapped down for it and conceding defeat. She finds it fun and she loves him for it, but now he’s playing games with Douglas as well and she isn’t entirely sure where she stands any more. 

“Good. Hercules!”

Herc sticks just his head around the doorway, ridiculously modest, and tells them that dinner will be five minutes. They decamp to the already laid table and Douglas unties the cloth from around her face. 

Now that she can talk again Carolyn is temporarily dumbstruck. Douglas pours wine for her and water for himself and talks about the flat and tomorrow’s TV as if she were a normal dinner guest. Herc, still naked, serves a vegetable curry with samosas and naan bread and takes his own seat, frowning slightly at the glass of wine in front of him before he takes a sip. 

Over dessert Carolyn decides that she’d had enough of the small talk. “There is one important question I’d like answered, before this goes any further,” she says, interrupting Douglas in the middle of a genial anecdote about putting up the Ikea shelves.

Douglas gestures cheerfully for her to go ahead. 

“If this game of yours is about making Herc do all these humiliating and intolerable things, why didn’t you get him to cook real food instead of this awful green stuff?” She pushes the empty plate (it was actually rather good but that’s not the point) away from her with an expression of distaste. 

Douglas laughs. “If you were given ultimate power over him, is that what you’d make him do?”

“Undoubtedly. Along with keeping up to date with GERTI’s paperwork, washing my car and not losing his socks all over the house. All far more practical and satisfying abuses of power than tying him up and drawing all over him.” 

“That’s why it’s called a game and not a relationship.” Douglas says. “After all I don’t care where he leaves his socks.” He smiles at her. “Anyone can talk the talk. Let’s see what sort of job you make of it in practice. I’ll delegate my authority over Herc to you.”

“For how long?” she asks, suspiciously. 

“That depends on how interesting you are. If you make him pick up socks I imagine we shall all get bored rather quickly.

Carolyn resists the temptation to protest. This is Douglas' game. Of course he will change the rules halfway through. She is acutely conscious of both men looking at her, waiting to see whether she can come up with something suitably impressive, so that’s what she must do. 

She is certain that she is as capable as Douglas of thinking up petty torments but she doesn’t want to seem to copy him. After all it’s not Herc that she wants to make unhappy. And that gives her an idea. 

“If you are going to make a spectacle of yourself,” she says to her boyfriend, “you might as well make it an entertaining one. I want to see you kiss Douglas.”

Douglas’ smile becomes rather fixed. “Whatever he may have told you, I don't...”

“Come on, Richardson. Man up.” Herc's smile looks rather more genuine. “You know that I have to do what I'm told.”

“If you want to concede the game,” Carolyn says lightly, “you have only to say.” 

Douglas narrows his eyes at her. “You're meant to pick something he doesn't want to do.”

“If I want to play stupid games with him I can do so any time. Tonight I'm not playing a game with him. I'm playing one with you."

She’s got him. No kissing, Herc had said, and she knows the man well enough to know that would never have been his choice. It’s Douglas who doesn’t want any possible suspicion of affection to spoil his sex. Ridiculous man. “In the sitting room,” she suggests. “On the sofa.” 

They decamp to the sitting room with coffee. Douglas is rather quiet, for Douglas, but he hasn’t said no, and he lets Herc settle down on the sofa beside him, Herc’s arm wrapped around his rather stiff shoulder. 

“Now?” Herc asks, and she nods, but it’s Douglas who moves. As his mouth pushes Herc’s head back against the sofa his hands are sliding, fast and very definitely, across the other man’s naked body. Within seconds he’s on top of Herc, still kissing him. Carolyn can’t bring herself to look away. 

Eventually he pulls back a little. Herc is gasping, eyes closed.

“More?” Douglas asks, his voice low and rough. Carolyn doesn’t know what it’s doing to Herc but she can make a guess from the effect on her.

“God, yes!”

“Don’t you think you ought to check with your girlfriend first?”

The slightly shamed look Herc gives her tells her that he’d forgotten she was there. She probably ought to chastise him for that, but it won’t happen in Douglas’ presence. Instead she smiles sweetly at him. “Douglas didn’t tell me you were going to be this undisciplined. I don’t recall telling you to stop.” 

There is a brief pause, before Douglas laughs, a proper, amused Douglas laugh this time. “I suppose I should have guessed that you two would be as bad as each other. What happened to being shocked and jealous?”

“Jealous about you kissing my paramour, Richardson? Now that I can see what you’re up to there’s hardly any need for that. You’re really not that impressive.”

“It feels quite impressive, actually. “ Herc has propped himself up on an elbow. “He’s rather good, for someone who claims to no experience whatsoever.”

“Kissing is just kissing,” Douglas tells him. “It’s not particularly gender-specific.” 

“So why wouldn’t you do it before?” Herc asks.

“I wasn’t in the business of fulfilling your sexual fantasies. Or hers.” He looks across at Carolyn.

She’s fairly sure that she didn’t blush noticeably at that. “In that case you’ve played your hand exceptionally badly. Look at him!”

Douglas looks down as directed at the man sprawled beneath him and laughs again. “I’m hardly likely to have misjudged him. He’s always an open book. But I thought pride would be sufficient to make you pretend that watching us didn’t turn you on.” 

She finds herself laughing as well at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. “Whereas I only told him to kiss you because I was under the impression that you’d hate it.” 

“Oh, he doesn’t hate it at all,” Herc says. “There’s evidence down here, if you want to look.”

She grins. “You really have screwed up, haven’t you? If you’d tried any harder to make us miserable we’d be in the bedroom with a post coital cigarette each by now.”

“Not smoking in my bed!” Douglas says.

“The cigarette was figurative.”

“Just the cigarette?” 

“Just the cigarette, “ she confirms. It’s not as if they don’t all know where this is going.

Douglas snorts. “I knew it was a mistake to let you in. How the hell will either of us keep him well behaved after this?”

Herc does look remarkably happy. Carolyn supposes it’s his best case scenario. “If we can’t think of something between us I shall be disappointed in you.”

“Fair enough. Well, “ Douglas says to Herc. “When I said I wouldn’t dream of laying a finger on the lady, I may have lied, just a little.” 

What follows might have had a high chance of being awkward and embarrassing if the game hadn’t already set the tone. As it is, the various torments they think up for Herc keep things moving and everyone very much involved. After a while Carolyn is pretty sure that Douglas has no reason to feel sidelined and Herc definitely doesn’t so she relaxes, fairly certain that she’ll still have two pilots to fly her booking tomorrow afternoon.

She wakes early. Dawn light shines through the curtains and she’s thirsty. She slides out from under Herc’s arm. He’s lying on his front, his other hand resting on Douglas’ naked stomach. Douglas is lying halfway off the bed, which is not really big enough for three of them. Both men are snoring, unsyncronised. No wonder she’s awake.

The remains of the meal still on the table make her wrinkle her nose as she walks through to the kitchen for a glass of water. There’s some clearing up to be done after last night. Maybe it’s best that she has some time to think before she has to talk to either of the others. Carolyn nips back into the bedroom to dress then takes her drink out onto the balcony to watch the sun rise over the outskirts of Fitton.

She decides that she likes her relationship with her manipulative, game playing pilot just as it is, or at least as it was. Last night was fun, but it doesn’t mean that she wants an affair with Douglas and she’s pretty sure that he doesn’t want one with her either. 

That’s one side of the triangle sorted. As for the second, Herc loves her, undoubtedly, and she, probably to her future regret, is more than reasonably fond of him. But the third, well! 

They'd tied Hercules to the bed on some pretext and she'd taken the opportunity to go on top. Herc had obvious been trying to be gentle; it hasn't been her first time that night. Then Douglas had said something to her about keeping her boyfriend quiet, the back of his hand sliding casually across Herc's mouth in illustration and she'd felt the response of the man below her as if the touch had been nerve shattering electric. She has still no idea as to whether Douglas takes any of this at all seriously, but her stupid man is well and truly hooked. 

Carolyn finishes her drink and returns quietly to the bedroom. Douglas wakes at the tap on his shoulder and follows her to the living room, stopping just long enough to wrap a dressing gown around his waist. She closes the door behind him.

"This is all rather ominous. Regrets?" He lounges in an armchair, waiting. 

"Don’t be ridiculous." She hasn't any, slightly to her surprise. " But we need to talk about him."

"Really? I can't for the life of me imagine why we would want to do that."

"Because I don't intend to have him mooning over your while he's supposed to be working for me."

"Are you warning me off?" he asks, smiling. 

There's no point in that. Douglas made unavailable, even if she had the power to make him unavailable to Herc but still available to MJM Airlines and she's fairly sure that she doesn't, is not going to be any less attractive to Herc. There will be more mooning not less and she doesn’t intend to be cast as the spoilsport over this. 

"When have I ever stopped my pilots playing silly games? You two can play what you like, Douglas, but if you decide you want a boyfriend rather than a playmate you can find one of your own."

“Ah,” he says. “Well, I can promise you that’s never going to be an issue. Was that everything?”

“Yes.” She can’t think of any other promises to extract from him or threats to hint at. This will work as it is, or it won’t. 

“Good. Coffee?”

By the time Herc joins them they are most of the way through last night’s washing up while Douglas relays to Carolyn some of the previously omitted details of the cockpit antics on the last Burling Day and she pretends without any great conviction to be more horrified than amused. He stops at the door, eyes flicking from Douglas to Carolyn before he comes forward to plant a rather hesitant kiss on her cheek. 

“Let me do that. “ The tea towel is whisked out of her hand. 

She lets him take over, instead taking a fresh cup of coffee into the living room. Maybe Herc’s residual penitence over his infidelity with Douglas will get her downstairs bathroom redecorated. She knows that he’s been holding off on offering to help, hoping that she’ll relent on letting him move in. 

That’s off the cards, after last night. It would seem too much like insecurity, like staking her claim. A pity in some ways; she’d come close to relenting, before all this.

From the kitchen comes Herc’s laugh, deep and, she can tell, genuinely amused. She puts the coffee down. On the other hand, why should Douglas Richardson’s opinion stand between her and deep blue and cream tiling and a new bevelled edged suite? 

 

“Are you going to drive like that all the way home?”

“Sorry,” Herc says, and removes his hand from her knee. The car’s ridiculously cramped but even so he usually manages to keep both hands on the wheel. They have left Douglas’ flat without anything of significance being said and now they are heading back to her house for a quick change of clothes and to pick up Herc’s flight bag for this afternoon. 

That’s if they get there in one piece. “Will you please look at the road, Hercules!” The anxious glances in her direction are annoying as well as very marginally unsafe. 

“Sorry, “ he says again. “Are you sure everything is all right?”

“Stop the car.” she says. “Not like that!” The braking nearly sends her through the windscreen. “Just pull over somewhere. That’s all.”

He finds a lay-by and they sit for a moment before she turns to him. “Listen. I am fine. Douglas is fine. You appear to be something of a wreck. Are you going to get over it before you swap the controls of this stupid car for those of my very expensive aeroplane, or do I have to get Douglas to fly both ways?”

He smiles at that. “I’m sure he’ll do it perfectly, while swearing blind that he only ever goes one way. Though that’s probably not what you meant. Sorry. Yes I’ll be fine to fly, of course. And I’m truly sorry about last night.”

“Stop apologising,“ she tells him sternly. “Anyone would think to listen to you that this was all your doing. Given that it was one of those rare occasions on which Douglas and I were in agreement it’s not as if you were likely to have any real say in the matter at all.” 

“That’s true,” he says, looking a little cheered. “You were quite insistent. Do you think... that is, are you likely to want to do it again?”

“When it comes to encouraging Douglas Richardson in the ridiculous fantasy that he’s in charge, I think one night is quite enough. You’ll just have to manage without me.” 

His kiss this time isn’t at all hesitant. When they break for air he’s smiling.

“There’s a couple of days free next week. Do you want to go and look at those tiles for the bathroom? I could make a start on taking the old stuff down if you’d like?”

“A start? You can finish it, and about time too,” she says. “If I have to let you move in I don’t want to be queuing for the only usable bathroom every morning.” 

He drives the rest of the way with only one hand on the wheel again, but since it’s his car and not her aeroplane she doesn’t bother complaining. Herc probably won’t crash. She’s been waiting all this time for the inevitable appearance of the other woman that will prove her right to have held back from commitment. Now instead there’s another man and if that’s not a good reason for her to get out she can’t imagine what would be. She glances across at him, fighting the fond smile which wants to steal over her face. He probably won’t crash. She's never going to get more certainty than that. And if Douglas Richardson breaks his promise or Herc's heart, well, she’ll deal with it. 

The End


End file.
